Homemade Buckwheat Noodles

How to make soba noodles from scratch. I looked on YouTube for the buckwheat to flour ratio, and the first recommended video was on Japanese 101 cooking. In the video, the demonstrator cooks up a package of soba noodles and proceeds to plate it with other ingredients. This is not what homemade noodles means! So anyways. This recipe ratio is from Food52, and I must say, if you sub the spelt flour for all purpose flour, the taste is.. hideous. I mean, it doesn't taste like any commercially made soba noodle I ever ate at home or at a restaurant. I don't quite know what spelt flour tastes like; though I've heard it is a healthier alternative to all purpose white flour; even though spelt is just hulled wheat berries. It makes me wonder what the actual difference is between "white" unbromated/unbleached flour and spelt flour since both are using hulled wheat. Maybe it's a marketing thing. It simply boggles the mind how we lie to ourselves about what is and isn't healthy for food ingredients. Though, I've read that while spelt is a wheat, it's a cousin of modern wheat and more nutritious. I digress. This post isn't about the nuances of wheat plants.

For the noodles...

1 c buckwheat flour + more for rolling
1/2 c kamut or white spelt flour (can substitute AP flour)

up to 150 ml hot water

For my climate (Pacific Northwest) and season (late summer), there is some humidity in the air and I used 120 ml of water in this batch which made 10.78 oz of fresh noodles.

Directions

In a bowl, mix the two flours together and gradually add hot water until a shaggy/rough dough forms. Sprinkle buckwheat flour onto your work surface and knead the dough until all the flour is combined (no dry spots remain) and the dough ball is smooth.

Once you have rolled the dough out into a big rectangle. Sprinkle the dough with buckwheat flour, then fold the top third down and the bottom third up, like you are folding a 3-page brochure. You can trim the edges if straight edges are important to your noodle making but it is not necessary since they come out terribly shaped no matter how you cut these with a chef knife. 

With your hands, shape it into a rectangular blob and start rolling it out until it is 1/4 a centimeter thick. Tessie Woo cuts her noodles thicker for her dish on Food52, but I'm sure you've had noodles that you've either bought at the store or had at a restaurant. Cut the noodles to that imaginary width. For me, I aimed for 1/4 to 1/2 centimeter wide, which is still pretty wide for a soba noodle.

Toss the cut noodles in buckwheat flour to prevent the noodles from sticking to each other.

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add a large handful of noodles to the water. Boil for 1-2 minutes, then drain and rinse in cold water or let drain/cool in an ice water bath.

End notes:

I think I'll stick to making ramen noodles from scratch. While they take longer to prep, they don't have the grainy "I'm eating sand" texture that buckwheat noodles have.

Ramen Noodles from Scratch

Most of the ramen noodle recipes I found on the web didn't call for egg as one of the dough ingredients. This is my second attempt at making ramen noodles. The recipe is pretty simple. While it is cheap to make, it probably doesn't compare to the convenience of the store-bought packages. The liquid potassium carbonate can be found in most Asian grocery stores and can be substituted with an equal amount baked baking soda.

Homemade Ramen Noodles w/ shitake mushrooms and egg

Serves: 6

Ingredients

2 c unbleached all purpose flour
2 tbsp vital wheat gluten
1/2 c warm water
1 tsp potassium carbonate (liquid)

Directions

In a large bowl, stir all ingredients together. Knead into a ball. Cut into quarters and place unused portions into a plastic bag or covered with a clean kitchen towel.

Flatten the ball out with your hand and lightly dust it with flour on both sides. Either roll it out thin with a rolling pin or use a pasta machine and crank the dough through each setting twice until you come to the second to last setting. My pasta machine goes numerically from 1-8, with 1 being the largest aperture. For ramen noodles, I use setting #7 (second to smallest thickness).

Use the noodle cutting attachment to cut the noodles from the long length of dough.

Bring a large stockpot of lightly salted (1-2 tsp kosher salt) water to a boil. Fresh ramen noodles will cook in about 3-4 minutes.

Do not cook the noodles directly in the broth it will be served in.

To serve: Remove cooked noodles from the pot with a spider strainer (also found at an Asian grocery store, it usually has a long metal or bamboo handle with a steel mesh strainer) to a soup bowl. Add 1 soup ladle of the noodle's cooking water plus 2 soup ladles of the broth you are serving the noodles with. Garnish with toasted nori, halved hard-boiled egg, fresh or fried bean sprouts, etc.

Sichanese Dan Dan Noodles

If it weren't for this cookbook, I would not have known to make the dish nor the sauce that goes with it. This recipe comes from Fuchsia Dunlop's Land of Plenty. Total prep time is about an hour, including noodle cooking time. This was one of the few times I went out of the way to procure a single recipe ingredient, in this case it was the tianjin preserved vegetable; which is a garlic and salt-preserved cabbage. If you can't find this little clay urn of intensely salty vegetable, you could probably substitute the more commonly used preserved turnip or preserved mustard greens instead.

Egg Noodles with Pork & Bok Choy, Sichuanese Flavors

More appalling was the fact that the Wel-pac brand was the only packaged noodle at the Asian grocery store that listed egg as an ingredient instead of yellow food coloring. Sichuanese food is nearly synonymous with hot and spicy. The spiciness of the dish comes from chili oil and toasted sichuan peppercorns.

Serves: 4

For the noodles:

1 pkg (3 bundles) egg noodles

8 bok choy heads, halved and leaves only

For the sauce:

2 tbsp tianjin preserved vegetable, or pickled Chinese cabbage

1 tbsp olive oil

3 spring onions, green parts only, finely chopped

3 tsp light soy sauce

2 tsp dark soy sauce

1 tbsp chili oil, to taste

2 tsp Chinese black vinegar

1 tsp ground toasted sichuan peppercorns

1 qt hot chicken stock

For the pork:

1 tbsp olive oil

3.5 oz ground pork

1 tsp Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry

1 tsp light soy sauce

Directions

1. Rinse the Tianjin vegetable in a sieve under the tap to get rid of excess salt and shake dry. Heat the oil in a wok over a high heat,and stir-fry the Tianjin vegetable until it is dry. Set aside.

2. To prepare the pork topping, add the oil to the wok and heat through. Add the ground pork and stir-fry, splashing in the Shaoxing wine. Add the soy sauce and fry until the meat is cooked but not too dry. Set aside.

3. Divide the stir-fried preserved vegetable, the spring onions and the light and dark soy sauce, chili oil, vinegar, Sichuan pepper and stock among four serving bowls.

4. Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil. Add the bok choy and blanch until just cooked. Place a couple of leaves in each serving bowl. Meanwhile, add the noodles to the boiling water and boil until cooked to taste. Drain the noodles and divide among the prepared bowls. Top each serving with a spoonful of the cooked pork.

5. Serve immediately. The noodles should be mixed into the sauce at the table, using chopsticks.

Basic Yaki Udon

It could very well be that I misread the instructions on the noodle package, but I was complimented that these noodles tasted very good with how I prepared them. For the most part, yaki udon (also, yakiudon) is a Japanese-origin noodle dish which came about after the mid-1940s. At it's core, it's a noodle dish served with a special sauce (equal parts of oil and soy sauce), a meat, and vegetables. At restaurants it is typically served with cabbage, carrots, and scallions; along with a serving of cooked chicken, beef, pork, or shrimp.

If you cook the entire package of noodles, it will feed 3-4 people; so adjust the protein measurements according to how many people you are serving these noodles to.

The ingredients:

1 (9.5 oz) pkg of organic udon noodles
2-4 oz cooked protein per serving (e.g., sliced braised beef, pork, chicken, shrimp, tofu, etc)

The sauce:

4 green onions (scallions), thinly sliced
2 tbsp reduced sodium soy sauce
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp sesame oil

Directions:

1. Cook the noodles according to the package instructions; for me that means adding the noodles to a pot of boiling water (unsalted) and letting them cook to a rolling boil (foamy). Drain the noodles and rinse briefly under cold water, but don't cool the noodles down entirely.

2. In a separate large pot, heat green onions, soy sauce, olive oil and sesame oil on low-medium heat; just enough so that the oils mingle together. Add the noodles to this pot and stir with a large wooden, plastic, or rubber spatula until all the flavors are combined and the noodles are coated with the sauce. Transfer noodles to a single serving bowl or to individual bowls.

Enjoy.

Pork Fried Noodles

The best part about tasty leftovers is being able to create a tasty dish that can be enjoyed. We had leftover pork roast and leftover whole wheat spaghetti noodles from two separate meals. You can easily substitute the pork for chicken breast, beef, or shrimp.

Ingredients

cooked spaghetti noodles
1 c. pork roast, sliced or diced
1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
1/2 c. garlic chives, cut into 1" slices
1 garlic clove, minced

Directions

1. In a large cast iron pan, heat 2 tbsp olive oil and add noodles. Fry over low heat until the noodles have browned. Flip the heap of noodles over so that the other side can brown too.

2. Add garlic, chives, soy sauce, sesame oil, and slices of pork roast. Stir into the noodles until everything is evenly distributed. Don't let the chives brown. When the chives turn a vibrant green color, they are cooked.

3. Serve in bowls or on plates. Enjoy.

Hon-kaeshi (soba sauce)

Hon-kaeshi is a dark Japanese noodle sauce often served with chilled soba noodles or other savory dishes. Its ingredients are a ratio of dark soy sauce, mirin, and sugar. I have adapted the ratio for 1 serving, though, it can probably be multiplied for more. And, since I'm using this with a bowl of fresh soba noodles, this preparation is for serving it fresh. A traditional method would be to cook the ingredients together for storage in the refrigerator. You could probably use unbleached granulated sugar instead of brown sugar, but you should use a good quality soy sauce and mirin. I used Takara mirin, a cooking sake.

Ingredients

1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp mirin
1 tsp brown sugar

Directions

Combine ingredients and mix until sugar has dissolved. Serve as is in a separate bowl from soba noodles or mix with soba noodles, then serve.

Can also prepare with rehydrated wakame seaweed and serve over cooked soba noodles. I like wakame since it is cheaper and easier to find in the Pacific NW than bonito, and much easier to prepare than kombu seaweed.

Because this recipe calls for both sugar and soy sauce, it can also be used as a flavoring with grilled chicken (yakitori), thin slices of beef served over vegetables (sukiyaki), etc.

The traditional Kaeshi prep method is as follows:

4 1/4 c. (1 litre) good quality soy sauce
3/4 to 1 c. mirin
3/4 to 1 c. brown sugar

Directions:

1. In a pot, heat mirin until boiling, then simmer until much of the alcohol has evaporated.
2. Turn off heat and add sugar to pot, stirring until sugar is dissolved.
3. Add soy sauce and bring to a boil until liquid temp is 185 degrees F (85 degrees C).
4. Turn off heat and let cool until transferring liquid to a container.